Pete Carroll has more wins than any other Seahawks coach. He has a Super Bowl win on his resume. Ditto an NCAA national championship. He is the oldest coach in the NFL this season, and it looks like he will be for years to come.

The Seahawks extended Carroll’s contract through 2021 on Christmas Eve, but after this season’s success, it was a foregone conclusion that he’d be back. The 2018 campaign has likely been one of the most gratifying of Carroll’s career, but it’s safe to say that many pundits — yours truly included — didn’t see this coming.

In the offseason, Carroll went against prevailing wisdom by emphasizing the ground game, going so far as to select a running back in the first round of the draft. He brought in retread Brian Schottenheimer as offensive coordinator and installed old friend Ken Norton Jr. to lead a defense that lost Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril and their 12 combined Pro Bowl appearances. He then...